Chestnuts og Chesterton

Ved siden av å uttale overskriften høyt og fort femti ganger, er det på tide å tenke over julegavene som snart bør bestilles fra selveste utlandet.

Dermed tar vi oss friheten til overraskende nok å anbefale bind to av Chestertons ubetalelige dikt, nylig sluppet og illustrert av forfatteren.

Eller bind X av Collected Works, for de som måtte telle på gamlemåten.

Som en aperitiff, fra bind 1 (eller rettere IX), kan vi jo ta med et aktuelt dikt i disse finanstider:

A Ballade of Suicide

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours--on the wall
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall
I see a little cloud all pink and grey
Perhaps the rector's mother will not call
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way
I never read the works of Juvenal
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The world will have another washing-day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall,
Rationalists are growing rational
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray
So secret that the very sky seems small
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Envoi

Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall,
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Tiltredes.